Bakers Journal August/September 2017 : Page 12

It’s super moist and with the two components clashing, but beautifully clashing, it’s one of those bars that you do say OMG.” Every product is from scratch, with some ready-made exceptions: fondant, gum paste, peanut butter, Nutella and some jams. From scratch and local: from vision to execution, it’s been a recipe for success. PARTNERS FROM SCRATCH Forming a successful partnership, they conclude, as really come down to communication. “If we got all mired in production we make all sorts of assumptions of what the other person will think and we lose touch with how the other partner is feeling. So that’s really, really important – business meetings that don’t involve other people,” says Rudderham. “I feel like you have to aggressively pursue honesty at all times,” says Miller. “At every step. Always put everything on the table.” Rudderham has always overseen kitchens, savoury and pastry while Miller took charge of cakes and front of house. They used to have a lot of overlap, but now they have almost none and that’s taking some getting used to. They are too big to know what the other person is doing all the time now. } “I feel like you have to aggressively pursue honesty at all times,” says Miller. “At every step. Always put everything on the table.” LOOKING AHEAD The bakery hit its five year mark and the team realized they had made it. “Our focus shifted from survival mode to planning mode. We have more paperwork that we made in the last year than we made in the first five years,” says Rudderham. Miller says she would like to eventually have a third location for the cake department as a next step. The long term dream is to have different locations for every department so they can all have their own purpose built kitchen, says Rudderham. Currently, breads and cakes share ovens, which isn’t ideal. The owners won $100, 000 in a small business challenge, and “The Lights of Dundern” became one of their big projects in recent years because of it. They are in planning mode for this year and will host a street festival in winter that will see “Christmas spilling out on the street, freshly candied nuts, musicians, winter celebration: It’s very rewarding and it wasn’t part of the business plan,” says Rudderham. “Last year it was a genuinely magical evening. The snow just started falling. We had Santa come out and the kids were going crazy for him. The line-up of performances was perfect. It was a really nice evening.” From bakery to beyond, Cake & Loaf is becoming a part of the community fabric in surprising and wonderful ways. / BJ For more profiles, visit www.bakersjournal.com. 12 BAKERS JOURNAL / AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2017 2016-09-22 11:08 AM www.bakersjournal.com BJ_Milano_November16_CSA.indd 1